This Easter, as is often the case when bringing food to a potluck or shared meal, I was tasked with making the desserts. No problem there! I enjoy baking, and it’s nice to not be the only one partaking of a fresh pan of cookies, etc., LOL.

Special attention was to be paid to the following criteria: gluten and soy free, and no GMOs please. A fun little challenge. Soon I had a gazillion tabs open in my browser checking out recipes and thinking which I could combine or modify. Here’s what I ended up making:

Buckwheat Banana Bread

This was a moist and flavorful bread with a nice texture balance from the walnuts. The buckwheat flour was not at all overpowering, leaving the starring role to the bananas. The adults quite enjoyed it, but unfortunately, the little one isn’t a fan of bananas.

The recipe can be found at The Next Course. I used 4 large ripe bananas, dramatically cut back on the baking powder and soda to reduce the sodium, and replaced the coconut oil with applesauce (who needs all that saturated fat?).

Raw Carrot Cake

This “cake” made only from dates, walnuts, almonds, carrots, and spices with a date/cashew/vanilla frosting was a huge hit. My friends’ 7-yo daughter asked for seconds and thirds.

The recipe can be found at Trinity’s Kitchen. Here again, I skipped the coconut oil. I also doubled the recipe and added a bit more carrot to make a 9×9″ cake. Lastly, my blender wasn’t quite up to the task with the frosting, so I used some cashew milk to help it along.

During the first half of 2009, the Vegan Done Light newsletter ran what turned out to be its most controversial series, a hard-hitting, no-holds-barred, analysis of the research on vegetarian nutrition and supplements.

I’d asked Michael Rae, once a vitamin industry insider, a long-time vegetarian (then, perhaps still?), and now VP of Research for the Calorie Restriction Society, whether he’d be willing to guest author an article for VDL.

As an avid life extensionist, he’d been dishing out such information in drips and drabs for years through his writings at his previous employ and via the CR Society’s mail groups, so he was a natural and logical choice. My challenge to him was to put it all down in one place. He agreed to take up the gauntlet and proposed a three-part split.

I don’t think either of us expected it to wind up being so time-consuming and comprehensive. In the end, with a missed deadline and an extra segment thrown in for good measure, a full five months of dedication had gone into it!

To be fair about the “controversy,” those issues received just as many — actually, MORE — complimentary email responses than angry ones. The thing is Michael brought no biases to the table nor axes to grind, so he spoke objectively and candidly to the findings, and that apparently didn’t sit well with everyone.

He covered topics such as…

How to analyse your diet for imbalances

The best food sources of Iron, Calcium, B12, and many more

The one nutrient he asserts you must take in supplement form

The full story on Omega- fatty acids

A slew of “conditionally essential” nutrients

All fully referenced for your further study and debate fodder. It really was a great series of which we were both very proud, he for writing it and me for publishing it exclusively in the newsletter. Good news…

He recently contacted me to ask if he could reprint it, and I happily obliged. You can now read that classic from the Vegan Done Light archives for free on the Calorie Restriction Society forums (no registration required):

Through a comparison of plant-based foods, they sought to determine the best source of naturally occurring vitamin B12. Included in the review were various kinds of beans, leafy greens, other vegetables, mushrooms, and algae. They also discuss milk and egg yolks, finding the former to be very low in B12 and the latter to offer poor bioavailability of the vitamin.

After considering factors such as the concentration, consistency, and type(s) of B12 compounds, gastrointestinal absorption, and the presence of pseudovitamin B12 (as in spirulina), they declared a clear winner:

A survey of naturally occurring and high Vitamin B12-containing plant-derived food sources showed that nori, which is formed into a sheet and dried, is the most suitable Vitamin B12 source for vegetarians presently available. Consumption of approximately 4 g of dried purple laver (Vitamin B12 content: 77.6 µg /100 g dry weight) supplies the RDA of 2.4 µg/day.

In addition to being a great source of vitamin B12, nori contains iron and n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids.

The authors concluded the impressive results for shiitake mushrooms in the iron department and for vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol), which they write are “also nutrients that vegetarian diets tend to lack.”